


Delayed Shipping

by lureavi



Category: Klaus (2019), Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Christmas, M/M, Mutual Pining, Postman Matt, pining like a christmas tree, shiro is santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:35:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21992293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lureavi/pseuds/lureavi
Summary: No one ever talks about the story after the big holiday, when you might start to second-guess that big, split second, moved by the Spirit of Christmas decision.A fluffy Christmas AU based on the Netflix Christmas movie Klaus, with Matt as the postman and Shiro as the kind, reclusive woodsman (Santa). Takes place a few months after their first Christmas!
Relationships: Matt Holt/Shiro
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13





	Delayed Shipping

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BRobeast](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BRobeast/gifts).



> Merry Christmas Bro!! <3 I promise my posting it a little late is not a clever pun off the title, but that would have been pretty good.
> 
> I'm afraid the story won't make a ton of sense without seeing the movie, but the good news is: it's an amazing movie that everyone should watch and add to their yearly Christmas favorites :D

_ Take the new, bigger sleigh for a nighttime test run on a route that’ll fit it. _ It’s not like it's a difficult task, and in the whirlwind of life-shattering, heartbreaking scenarios Matt has dreamed up, which are sure to take place any day now, getting lost in the woods at night is not among them. __

Take a left at the weird twisty tree, done. Take a right by the cliff that was next to the slightly bigger cliff, done! So where is the bridge? Apparently it exists only as a lie on his out of date map . Apparently, his attempt to save the day and backtrack has since taken a turn for the worse, because the twisty tree is nowhere to be found. _Apparently_ this is just not going to go according to plan. He should have expected it, really. When has  anything gone as planned the last year and a half? This is just another reason for him to leave, to go back to the familiar comfort of silken sheets and financial security. Start a new life. Again. Only, this time of his own volition with some semblance of a work ethic and maturity.

That was the original plan, wasn’t it? From the day his mother had shipped him off to this frozen, feud-filled hellhole of a town, told him to start a post office, and told him to learn to have “responsibility” or what have you, he’s prayed for the day he would finally be able to leave. Nothing was supposed to have gone  _ this _ far.

But, back to the present, where Matt lays face-down in the slushy remains of Winter’s last surprise cameo into Spring. In hindsight, it might have been a poor idea to pace around in the dark, on a patch of partially-frozen mud that three reindeer had just lost their footing on.

A strong grip yanks Matt up from the snow. His feet leave the ground, hiked up by the underarms like an unwilling cat as he hears the first words outside of his own complaints in hours.

“Are you alright?”

Matt twists his neck to face his normally stoic travel companion, “a whole sentence,” he marvels, “what’s gotten into you? You’re never this chatty. Not that I’m complaining of course, if all it takes is a face-full of snow to get you to talk, I’ll slip again.”

With no visible effort, Shiro carries him back to the sleigh, setting Matt in the seat below where his name was freshly carved into the hickory. “No, you should watch your step. We’re lost, and it won’t do us any good if you twist an ankle.”

“Lost? Who said we were lost? I charted us a perfect course,” Matt insists, two octaves higher than his normal tone.

Shiro raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t comment on the blatant lie. He doesn’t point out the events of a few minutes prior, when Matt tossed his tattered map into the air, threw his hat into the bed of the sleigh, and yelled  _ “of course we’re lost, why wouldn’t we get lost,”  _ before slipping and face planting into the snow. Instead, he brushes the bits of ice from Matt’s hair and pulls the previously tossed hat back over his head. “We should camp out until morning. It’ll be easier to get back when it’s light out.”

“Alright, alright, so, we’re lost. And it’s night time. And it’s cold.”  _ And we’re alone, _ Matt adds silently, cursing the cruel hand of fate that chucked him into this. Alone, in the woods, trapped with his thoughts and person who’s been occupying them nonstop, the person he’s been trying to avoid for weeks.

Distance has been key in Matt’s mind. He’s finished what he came to this town to do, and then some. Sure, the old disaster of a town has since blossomed into a near utopian island of block parties, book clubs, and volunteer-run community events. But what about the life he’s left behind, miles away from here? The spirit of Christmas is not a permanent fixture. Back in December, it had been enough to keep him here, to follow through with what he’d started, even if he hadn’t been welcomed with open arms.

“I’m surprised you came back.” Shiro had said, unable to even make eye contact with Matt. No, there hadn’t been so much as a warm hello when Matt had ditched his ride back home and high-tailed it to Shiro’s cabin to save Christmas from the leaders of the Galran and Altean families hell-bent on destroying it.

“Yeah, here I am, putting my life on the line to save some toys and make kids happy, I’m clearly an awful person!” Matt had yelled back in frustration while he desperately clambered up a lumpy canvas bag, gripping the sides of a large tear and pulling it closed. He had nearly lost his footing, life flashing before his eyes as he faced the possibility of a high-speed, frigid fatality. “Come on, I could use some help!”

Shiro didn’t budge, didn’t look back, he had just kept still and glared at the path ahead. “Use. Interesting choice of words.”

Matt knew he deserved it at the time, but it still broke his heart. All the progress Matt had made with Shiro, through countless hours of midnight trips and workshop lessons, had been practically destroyed in just one night. Sure, the time together might have started out under false pretenses, but Matt figures if you spend hours alone with someone every night for months straight, you’ve gotta come out of that either loving or hating them. In the time since, the others in town have all forgiven him, but Matt’s sure that Shiro still harbors some deep, unspoken grudge. How is he supposed to stay here knowing that?

Oblivious to his companion’s psychological spiral, Shiro removes his own scarf to wind it around Matt’s shivering shoulders. “Are you warm enough?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be okay. Thanks.” He looks around, searching for anything he could use to avoid an awkward silence, when it strikes him how uncharacteristically conversational Shiro is being. “You know, this is the most we've talked in weeks?”

“I know. It’s just...been busy,” Shiro claims. He makes no motion to elaborate any further.

Matt gladly takes the small bit and runs with it. “Yeah. We’re part way through Spring and still stuck in the swing of Christmas with all the prep for next season… I kinda thought the spirit would die out a bit, you know? Hit a low point, take a break before picking back up in October or something.”

“So that’s what you’re waiting for?” Shiro asks. He sees Matt’s confusion at the question, but takes close note of fear just beneath. “Don’t give me that look. You fooled me for a year, you’re not going to do it again. You’re trying to leave again.”

Matt has yet to tell anyone his intentions, going straight to well-practiced deflection any time how long he plans on staying comes up, but he doesn’t have the heart to lie to Shiro again. “Alright, you got me. I’m thinking about going back. I just… don’t have a good reason to stay. Not anymore,” he admits. Sure, he still has friends, his job, and some sense of purpose here, but it doesn’t matter too much if the most important person to him doesn’t want him around.

“There’s a lot of people here who care about you,” Shiro assures him, “don’t think you won’t be missed.”

“I mean, I’ll miss a lot of people too... Especially you.” He adds the last part a bit quieter, but it’s clear neither of them miss it in the near silent night. “It’s pretty dark, come on, we should just figure out some sleeping arrangements and get to sleep” he adds quickly, looking away in time to miss Shiro’s lips twitch up into a smile.

“Alright. There’s some blankets in the back of the sleigh. We can sleep back there.” Shiro hops down from the seat, and offers his arm to Matt, “come on, I’ll boost you in, and I’ll check on the reindeer before we go to sleep.”

“Yeah, back of the sleigh, one make-shift bed. Sounds great,” Matt grumbles. He not-so-gracefully hops down from the tall sleigh, using Shiro’s arm to keep himself from face-planting a second time. It doesn’t take long for him to get his footing, but the second he does his feet leave the ground as Shiro lifts him up towards the back of the sleigh. “Oh! Okay, the boost is happening now,” he yelps.

Shiro lets go as soon as Matt manages to scramble over the edge. “I’ll be right back. Don’t wander off.”

“Lost in the woods, not a lot of places to go,” Matt mumbles to himself. He finds the emergency blankets quickly, given the fact that the sleigh is otherwise empty. He’s rather disheartened to find that the aforementioned  _ blankets _ , plural, happen to be one large  _ blanket,  _ singular. "Great..."

A sudden jerk of the sleigh startles Matt, and Shiro grunts a quick apology as he hauls himself up the ledge. He settles down next to Matt, a bit too close considering the large space open to them. “The reindeer will be alright for the night.”

“Good, good. Well, time to share this one blanket and not talk for the rest of the night, then?” He tosses one end of the blanket towards Shiro’s face, effectively muffling him for as long as it takes to hide himself beneath the other end of the blanket, “sounds great, goodnight!”

Shiro pushes the blanket away, and tugs the rest of it out of Matt’s grasp, “listen, I know you don’t want to talk about it, but for what it’s worth, I don’t think you should leave.”

With the blanket out of grasp, Matt hides himself in his scarf to brace for the words he's known for weeks would come. Of course Shiro would want him gone after everything. “Yeah, I know, I’m sure you-” he pauses, the words still processing.  _ Don’t? _ As in,  _ do not? _ That's not what he was expecting to hear. “You… want me to stay?” He checks, making sure he didn’t mishear.

Shiro throws the large blanket over both of their shoulders, and pulls it close around them. “Why is that surprising?”

“Well, messed up, and I hurt you… I just figured that you could never forgive me for it." Matt takes the chance to peek out from behind his borrowed scarf, immediately regretting the decision when his eyes meet Shiro's. Is he _upset_? Upset about being reminded of what Matt did? Upset about what Matt _thinks?_ He’s usually a master at deciphering whatever bits of information he gets from those stormy grays, but this time he hasn’t a clue. He continues, hoping to get a response he can understand. “I know you don’t trust people easily, and I broke that trust. I can’t undo what I did, so why wouldn’t you want me to leave?”

Shiro slides his arm around Matt’s shoulder, seemingly to fix the blanket better around him, and leaves his arm in place when he’s done. “You made it up to me when you came back and  _ stayed, _ " he assures.  “I think you’re too busy trying to run away from things to realize what you’re going to leave behind. What’s  _ here _ .”

“What’s here, or who?” Matt asks. He realizes about a second too late that it’s an awfully bold question, though maybe not quite as bold with an arm around his shoulders.

“Maybe both.”

An ambiguous, two word response to a rather loaded question. Matt should have expected as much. “As much as I love when you get all philosophical on me, if you like me I’d appreciate you just telling me without sounding like an old novel or a fortune teller.”

With a gloved hand, Shiro pushes Matt’s hat up off his forehead, far enough to plant a soft kiss on the exposed skin. “I like you,” he says softly, and tugs the hat back into place, “and I want you to stay.”

Matt laughs at the gesture, but it still feels like a weight off his shoulders, and a warmth in his chest that definitely isn’t just the blanket and body heat. “Well, you just gave me a pretty damn good reason to.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Merry Christmas <3


End file.
